What better film to launch a queer-cinema series than a satirical romantic comedy about a naive, All-American cheerleader who is sent to a “sexual redirection” rehab camp after her uptight parents suspect she is a lesbian?

“But I’m a Cheerleader” launches the Reel Queer Cinema Series at The Art Theatre, 2025 E. Fourth St. in Long Beach on Wednesday at 9 p.m.

The film series is the brainchild of two locals: Annie Parkhurst, cofounder of the AMP Organization, a local LGBT artists advocacy group, and cult film aficionado Logan Crow, founder of Mondo Celluloid, which holds frequent screenings at the Art Theatre.

“Queer means eveyone who doesn’t fit inside the box, and the films we’ll be showing definitely into that category,” says Parkhurst, who also helped form Cut & Paste Rock& Roll, a local music and arts festival featuring a variety of queer bands and artists.

The organizers see the film series as a gay community alternative to the bar and club scene, Parkhurst says.

Parkhurst and Crow say they will hold the series every two or three months.

George Alan Rekers, the disgraced Christian Right leader and “ex-gay” therapist exposed for his dalliances with a gay-male escort, once supervised experiments to change behavior in boys perceived to be feminine by denying the children maternal attention and spanking them, according to the Miami New Times weekly newspaper via The Advocate.com

Journalists Penn Bullock and Brandon K. Thorp, who broke the Rekers-male escort story for the Miami NewTimes in May, expose the ” violent Pavlovian regiment” at the Feminine Boy Project, a clinic Rekers operated at UCLA.

“In 1974, Rekers, a leading thinker in the so-called ex-gay movement, was presented with a 4-year-old ‘effeminate boy’ named Kraig, whose parents had enrolled him in the program. Rekers put Kraig in a ‘play-observation room’ with his mother, who was equipped with a listening device. When the boy played with girly toys, the doctors instructed her to avert her eyes from the child.”

Rekers also encouraged the use of a “reward-punishment system” involving spankings from the boy’s father to enforce masculine behavior, according to the Miami New Times article.

Just a second, wasn’t another boy enrolled in some type of spanking program to curb his behavior? That’s right, Ned Flanders from “The Simpsons.”

In the episode “Hurricane Neddy,” viewers learn Flanders is the son of “freaky beatniks” who didn’t discipline Ned and let him run wild. Eventually, his parents took him to Dr. Foster, who enrolled Flanders in the University of Minnesota Spankalogical Protocol. It involved eight months of continuous spanking. The treatment rendered Flanders unable to express any anger and resulted in his trademark nonsensical jabbering at moments when he was close to losing his temper, causing Flanders to repress his anger. A hilarious outcome for audiences.

What happened in Rekers’ case with Kraig? Kraig attempted suicide at 18 years old and committed suicide at 38. Read it the Miami NewTimes story here.

Apart from helping the wizard world defeat the malevolent Valdomort and the Death Eaters, Harry Potter also lends a hand to LGBT youth.

Daniel Radcliffe, 20, has filmed a public service announcement for The Trevor Project, which offers crisis services and a suicide prevention hotline to LGBT youth.

The free and confidential helpline, 866-488-7386 or 866-4-U-TREVOR, operates 24/7. The group also has a website, www.thetrevorproject.org.

In the PSA Radcliffe says, “If you’re feeling helpless or hopeless, there’s always a safe place to turn.” The video ends with Radcliffe saying, “Be proud of who you are.”

Radcliffe spoke with MTV News about his supporting The Trevor Project.

Because his parents were actors, “I grew up around gay men. It was always a natural thing to me. It was never something I ever gave a second thought to,” he told MTV. “And now I am in a position where I can help an amazing thing like the Trevor Project.”

Radcliffe told the Associated Press he has always “hated anybody who is not tolerant of gay men or lesbians or bisexuals” and why it was “important” for him to make the PSA.

“It’s important for somebody from a big, commercial move series like ‘Harry Potter’ and particularly because I am not gay or bisexual or transgendered…The fact that I am straight makes not a difference, but it shows that straight people are incredibly interested and care a lot about this as well.”